I can’t sleep. This was a selfie when Kr and I were working at Greenbelt 5 last week. I’m going to fix this later but this shall remain faceless because I still can’t draw faces. I need more Domestika courses.
UPDATE: Added details and lines
I’m hurting now because I had to excavate my chest again to talk about him with my shrink. Why it’s taking so long to get over this? Why am I the only one suffering and always on the losing end? He doesn’t even deserve half of me.
Brent crude hits $130 a barrel; Nikkei plunges
U.S., Europe ban on Russian products and delayed Iran nuclear talks spark fears
A friend posted on Instagram the cost of filling up his SUV. It’s more than PHP 3,000 = the cost of a new tire. Another friend posted that Grab Car costs PHP 500 from Mandaluyong to QC.
It’s really getting out of hand. By tomorrow, gas would increase by at least PHP 5 a liter. It’s going to be a nightmare for basic goods and services.
When Nikkei dropped this morning, I was able to buy ETFs in a momentary dip and it climbed back up before the market closed. Good for my portfolio, bad for the rest of the country overall.
I would be attending a webinar tomorrow by another global investment bank about this Ukraine crisis and how it is affecting ASEAN. At the same time, I have a regional conference to attend tomorrow until Friday and I’m still figuring it out how to split myself into three persons since I also have a press conference on Wednesday and a couple of deadlines.
I was craving for fish. And sushi. So I made some for our dinner.
I made a dip with soy sauce and roasted ginger and wasabe. Mmmmmmmm 🥰 I seared the surface of the tuna on a hot pan but it’s still raw inside.
Now I ran out of ingredients to make gimbap/maki on a whim. I always must have these ingredients on hand if I suddenly craved for such. I also have on my Lazada cart dashi powder and I’m still searching for bonito flakes so I can make other Japanese dishes. I still have a tub of soybean paste for soups.
So my cats wouldn’t want me to work. This morning Kimchi kept me from opening my notebooks and I was about to lead a meeting in a few minutes after this photo was taken. Such an obnoxious cat.
They just want my attention. 😂 Just like the girls.
Spoke with my shrink an hour ago or so and I related the latest hiccup in my psychotherapy (i.e. the painting and the subsequent anxiety attack that ensued). She said she is keeping the current dosage of my alprazolam because she is unsure whether another similar incident would occur in the very near future that could send me into a tizzy and derail my recovery. I told her about my propensity for buying stuff to make me feel better. She said it’s ok as long as it’s under control. When she says “under control”, it’s relative to how bipolar people spend—when they’re in their mania stage (very happy), they would spend so much that they would run their credit card to the maximum credit limit. In my case, it’s the opposite; I soothe my hurt feelings (very down on serotonin) to boost my morale and I’m not spending much vis a vis my income.
She says just continue with my art therapy and always have my support system so when I get derailed I won’t sink. She also said she is validating my feelings towards the incident and I have a very good reason for feeling that way. She said it is very understandable. And she says it’s very strange that after 14 months he sends something like that when I am already trying to live my own life so it’s hard to gauge what the intention was/is. Hence, she is keeping the same dosage for my meds because the situation is unpredictable and we wouldn’t know if I would have another anxiety attack if I get triggered again for some reason. She also recommended that I go out regularly to distract me and have a healthy relationship with society.
Probably I’ll go out on Thursday or Friday and work in some coffee shop under the trees. There used to be a coffee shop at Vargas Museum in UP where I worked from time to time. Or I’ll book a diving session at Dive Plunge Club to release energy.
This is a horror story all too real. I feel bad for the jeep, taxi, Grab and all delivery guys out there who are very reliant on gas for their livelihood. The middle class is already hurting too but it’s the little guys who are bleeding right now.
Aside from food costs, some bourgeoisie concerns are hitting me right now. The price of cat little went up by PHP 50 per 10 L so it’s now PHP 300. It’s a 17% increase. Cat food (Special Cat by Monge) rose by I think PHP 10-20 per kg. Earlier I was thinking of going to Cartimar Pet Center in Pasay to get wholesale prices but I decided against it because it is 12 km away from my house. But now that the prices have shot up, I think going to Pasay is going to be worth it in the end.
I think I’m going to be shocked by the prices of veggies on Tuesday when I go to UP to buy our weekly supply.
Having pets is expensive and it’s a life-long commitment. You don’t get a dog or a cat just because—and then give it away or resell it because you’re moving away or you grew tired of them. That’s just too cruel. The pets bond with you. These cats look to me as their mommy (a hairless mommy cat) and being abandoned by a second time would truly break their hearts. Last night Kimchi was waiting for us by the window when we arrived from Makati.
It’s like being a parent to real kids. You provide them with a stimulating environment so they can thrive. That’s the reason why I don’t want to get a dog in the city. I want my dogs to roam around freely in my yard and they can run whenever they want. When I still lived in my hometown, it was not a problem since they had like 200 sqm of front and backyard all to themselves. Vets are plenty since the College of Veterinary Medicine is just right there. The dean was my friend’s mom so getting treatment at the vet hospital was not difficult. I had a number of vet friends that I can call for pet medical emergencies.
When I was about to submit my application to UP, my dad urged me to consider taking vetmed since I had a menagerie and he thought it’s where my interests lie. I briefly thought about it but I could not imagine dealing with animals day in and day out vs writing and chasing stories 24/7. I chose the latter. Plus I don’t like organic chemistry and there was no way I can avoid it when I take vetmed. If it’s any consolation, my mom also struggled with organic chemistry in her undergrad years. She took it twice. I aced my general chemistry during my undergrad but anything beyond that did not make sense to me. That’s why I struggled with some parts of limnology when we got to the part of hydrogen sulfide toxicity levels and fish kills because I couldn’t map out properly the chemical reactions especially in aquaculture-heavy bodies of water where the rate of eutrophication is high. I understand the concept but when we go to the nitty-gritty of it…hah! Computing for dissolved oxygen at the bottom of Taal Lake was a nightmare for me in one particular exam where I failed.
Anyway, I digressed.
I’m finding ways now how to reduce the sodium content of my cats’ food so I tried buying chicken necks and boiled them for the cats. The two critters just sniffed at it and trotted off. They like fried fish though. Our Manila reporter’s dog had surgery last week because of kidney stones. Some vet friends said some pet foods have high sodium content so sometimes it helps if we vary the food of our pets.
Ms Butingting strikes again.
I thought the bluetooth hardware of this old gaming laptop was a goner. I searched for solutions on the interwebs and experimented with some software updates…in the process I lost connection for my dual screen monitors…IN THE END IT PAID OFF. I have my Bluetooth connection back. And the monitors back as well. I was afraid I would have to open the laptop and search if there was a physical disconnection somewhere. 😰 Whew! I was able to solve it. No need to rush having a new desktop computer assembled when we have semiconductor supply issues now.
While I was driving to and from Tiendesitas this afternoon and evening, I was thinking that I really don’t have to enroll/take reviews to get a CIIA if I’m not too keen on shifting industries. I would just make myself miserable just because I want to be busy to recover from a heartbreak. I could just enroll in art classes and go back to photography to distract myself. My colleague-friend said she took CFA exams because she figured she can’t be a journalist forever if she wants to stay in Singapore and not go back home to HK (because there’s really nothing to go back home to there now) and it was a good way to be productive to recover from Jaded.
Meanwhile, I could just become a communications consultant while immersing myself again in the academe—if needed—since I know this industry like the back of my hand. I already have some kind of expertise in it now and at this age, I cannot be a half-baked something. Like a Jill-of-all-trades, master of nothing.
My older sister just had a short course with a known local visual artist and there you go—she was able to mount an exhibit in 2018. She didn’t change careers (she’s still an economist with a PhD in a related niche industry) but going into visual arts provided her some kind of extension of her personality. I could just do that.
I could do pottery classes. I liked Ugu Bigyan’s ceramics when I first visited his place in 2000. I think it’s one art form that could reduce me to tears if I try to learn it.
I’ll just dabble in different art forms to keep me busy. I’ll just try to be Rajiv Surendra and try my hand at everything that looks interesting. Then build an art studio/workshop at my backyard when we finally settle into my hometown.
Yeah, I don’t have to take CIIA just because it sounds cool. I didn’t care for titles anyway.
I wanted to stay in bed longer but I needed to wake up early today to attend to my plants (it was really, really hooooootttttt) and cook brunch for the girls. Boiled quail eggs, onigiri, a bit of bacon and more broccoli.
After my Zoom meeting with the girls’ homeroom teacher who reported on the the quarter-on-quarter progress of my kids, we drove south to Makati to meet my sister-in-law, nephew, and my brother in Glorietta.
That head is Twin A’s; she wanted to hide herself from me by trying to sink under the table. That’s her French toast that she couldn’t finish so it was her twin who finished it for her.
My brother hied to Starbucks to watch movies on his iPad in peace while we went to the National Bookstore sale. Kuya P didn’t find anything interesting to buy while I have yet to finish the books lined up on my shelf in my room. I don’t have any business buying books these days. Plus the selections weren’t good since most were for young adults and children.
Of course boys will be boys. Kuya P went straight to ToyTown because some action figures were on sale. Yep, Gundam. My sis-in-law said her boys keep on building these just to gather dust at home. In a couple of months they will be moving into their new townhouse that they just bought in our hometown. The boys will have more space to display their toys. I told her that they can buy acrylic case for these figures online.
And they spent the remainder of the afternoon playing at Timzone with Kuya P while sis-in-law and I had coffee at another Starbucks near the movie theaters (yes, first time that they opened up the theaters).
The cousins had a great time with each other and Kuya P is asking when can they hang out again. I’m still figuring out when is the best time I could drive back home with the girls so I can meet with another contractor (just for another quote). An alternative is I told them they can stay with us in QC for a night or two one weekend so we can all try the restaurants in Maginhawa.
We all parted at 9 pm tonight.
Because it was so late, we weren’t able to buy cat supplies at Tiendesitas!
Well, that’s the agenda for tomorrow. Probably drop by Greenhills, too, to buy a USB Bluetooth dongle because the internal Bluetooth of this old gaming laptop finally gave up its ghost. Either the latest Windows 10 update killed it or it was really its time to go.
I’m going to have to have another quotation for a build-to-suit desktop computer for me (if I could get a mini-ITX case???) or I’ll see if it’s better to get a gaming laptop with Core i5 or Ryzen 5. But I want to suck the life out of this old gaming laptop so…Maybe I’ll hold off for a bit?
Let’s see what my gut feel says tomorrow.
I couldn’t sleep. So I put my only self-portrait in one of my extra Ikea frames. Et voila! It looks decent even without the lips and nose. I feel like I looked like Voldemort here.
Meanwhile, I fixed the vanishing point problem in this sketch after determining what I can adjust. I thought this was a disaster but my sis in law liked it so it motivated me to find a solution.
This gave me a headache. I just realized Ayala Museum faces Dela Rosa St. at an angle so it took me some time before I was able to determine how slanted this facade was. I need to adjust some more lines that don’t align. 😑 And I painstakingly counted all the glass panes. *wrinkles growing on my forehead* I don’t want Leandro Locsin Jr. to come after me with an axe for sabotaging his building.
I have my vanishing points mixed up. I need more exercises on vanishing points. 🤔
So it is done. I no longer have an official passport in the next 3 weeks.
I had been lining up the whole day today. First, for the girls’ second dose of Pfizer. Thankfully, it only took us an hour compared to 2.5 hours the first time. I drove them home and I went to Robinsons Novaliches where the satellite DFA office was for NCR North.
After entering the mall, I decided to have brunch first at McDonald’s and finish some digest I need to publish today. It was hard to concentrate 😫 but I had to finish what I can. Then I lined up again at DFA. The actual process was just less than 30 mins because everything was done online and the clerks just needed to verify and have my fingerprints and photo taken but it was the queue that took forever. This was different from what some friends told me when they just breezed through their renewal process in some locations like Robinsons Magnolia or SM Aura.
On the way back home I was debating whether I should drop by QC Circle to buy flowers. Well, well, well… Commonwealth Avenue in Fairview was lined with plant stores. Hahahaha! That decided for me. I bought four more flowering plants since some of mine at home dried up despite watering them twice a day. It’s just that it’s so freaking hot these days.
It was so hot that when I got home I was so exhausted. The heat sucked the life out of me and I just fell asleep. It was so hot that I was tempted to buy a giant Megabox plastic bin in Handyman that I can fill up with water so I can just soak in there.
As part of my urban sketching practice, I want to visit Escolta, Manila—the old shopping district in Manila before and after WW2 before Makati CBD came into being—to sketch the old Art Deco buildings there.
I should have done it in January when the heat was less deadly.
Escolta was the old CBD that’s why it was the fashionable area of the city then. The old banks’ and trading houses’ headquarters were located there. The old tranvia of Manila plied Escolta then.
By the 1920s and into the ’30s, the Manila Tramway became one of the most extensive tram networks in Asia, rivalling those in far more populated cities like Hong Kong (600,000 by 1930) and Tokyo (4,000,000 by 1930). Its 100-kilometre urban and interurban service carried a recorded 35 million passengers during its peak year in 1925. The tramway was a central part of the rapidly modernizing city, as the former colonial port town was growing up fast. The American influence and capital that had flowed into the Philippines following the US takeover brought with it a host of impressive Beaux-Arts and later Art Deco edifices, as a series of new office towers, government buildings, and train stations began to transform the Philippine capital.
Manila’s Long-Lost ‘Tranvias’ Once the Envy of Asia
Pedestrians in the photos were smartly dressed. The tranvia network was completely destroyed after WW2. Well, Manila was the most devastated city in the world after Warsaw when the war ended. The crafty Americans gave the Philippines independence right after because the country was so war-torn and expensive to rebuild. We were left to our own devices after that.
One of these days I would brave Manila and seek some haunting scene that I could sketch. Maybe I can start with the old Luneta Hotel.
Literally with the wildlife. This is so random. I saw this duck in the middle of Greenbelt Park while I was looking for a coffee shop after dropping by the corporate HQ of the presscon host. The duck was not perturbed with the presence of humans around it, like it was signalling to me “Ok, carry on hooman. Nothing to look at here,” while I overtook it.
I logged on the presscon remotely while our Manila reporter was on-site for ambush interviews. I was providing support from CBTL so we can upload/break the story ASAP since other news wires are also there. This is how we work when I know we have to break time-sensitive stories. Later Kr joined me at CBTL so we can discuss and correct each other’s contribution to the story.
A little breather after breaking the story.
As I learned from the urban sketching tutorials that I viewed/read, the key is to quickly draw on ink some rough figures to capture that precise moment and not mind whether it was accurate or not. Embrace the mistakes. I could not figure out how to draw the head of that bald guy so that is that…
I did some rough coloring. The problem with this palette is that it didn’t have a true black so I was stuck with greys. I have to fix this later now that I’m home.
UPDATE:
Since I was already at Greenbelt 5, I proceeded to the third level to browse at the The Craft Central and bought the girls some materials for their hobbies.
Acrylic paints and coin purses that Twin A could design/paint and a fluffy ball of yarn for Twin I’s knitting projects. It was expensive but at least it would keep them off the Internet for a couple of hours.
As for me, the Sakura Kois at The Craft Central did not satisfy me because it didn’t have the pop-able watercolor pans and I don’t want to carry extra palettes when I do urban sketching. So I went to Fullybooked at Basement 1 to search for either Royal Talens, Daniel Smith, or Winsor & Newton.
So I resorted to buying individual half-pans of the colors that I didn’t have like deep black and white that cost PHP 125-PHP 169 each tiny pan. Unfortunately these are not the artist-grade type. Van Gogh is Royal Talens’ line that is one step higher than student grade (more pigmented than student grade) but not yet artist grade while the Winsor & Newton Cotman line (different from Winsor & Newton, which is super expensive since it’s artist grade—PHP 500+ a pop) is student grade (i.e. chalky, less pigmented). But I think it would suffice since it’s just black and white (for mixing and highlight) plus gold and umber for nature sketches. Those four already cost me over PHP 500. That’s why I have to be careful in buying these stuff because I may just end up not using them all.
Because of my breaking news and search for watercolors, I missed my appointment with my shrink…😣
Tomorrow we need to be early for the girls’ second dose vax and my passport renewal. How can I work in between?